Ninth Stage

Spirol International is a company designing and manufacturing specialty hardware. Over the years I’ve purchased a few of their products many times. Often the ordered quantity of the item would not be in stock but I’d receive a partial shipment and the balance within a reasonable time period.

That changed with my most recent order. Late last year I called my sales rep and ordered 1000 pieces of one item. She said that they only had 350 in stock and told me the rest would soon follow. With the 350 in hand I manufactured a large order and assembled some of it with the inserts I had, then put the rest of the order on the shelf awaiting the balance of the item.

Time passes and I call my sales rep again and she gives me a delivery date of April 19th for the remaining 650 pieces. Being busy I didn’t call again until the beginning of June. This time I got a recording saying my sales rep would be out of the office until June 9th and an extension to call while she was gone. So I called the other extension and the person there said that she didn’t know anything about the April 19th date but they’d ship on the 29th of June. Now my customer is getting impatient and so am I.

Today is the 3rd of July and I called again to make sure my order has shipped. Reaching my sales rep’s voicemail I again heard that she’s on vacation and will return on June 9th, now the recording is indistinct and scratchy, like it’s been played many many times. So I call the other extension again and this time there’s no answer.

I call again and press the button for an operator and she transfers me to some dude who says he’s the General Manager, I recall his name as Asshole. I tell Asshole what I’m looking for and he promises to call back. Unlike many assholes, this Asshole calls back. He tells me that the balance of my order will ship on August 1st. I explain to him that I’ve had many promises of delivery and suggest I should receive them sooner. Asshole explains to me all the ways he cannot deliver earlier and that really really they’ll ship on the 1st and how he has a piece of equipment down and the queues for his other machines are full and no he can’t move this item to out of the queue for the broken machine. I suggest that this machine must have been down for some time since the delivery date has slipped by three and a half months on an item that shouldn’t take more than two hours to run on one of these machines. Asshole starts telling me about all his problems and how I’m not the only one who’s parts are late. I interrupt to agree that he has problems and I’m sure that there are other customers of Spirol waiting for parts and I ask Asshole why this information should inspire confidence in his company rather than search for alternative sources of this item (while talking to Asshole I did find another source via the magic web of searching). I ask Asshole if it’s possible for me to recieve this item earlier than the first and if not how about a refund? Asshole starts explaining that if he promises an earlier date it might slip and anyhow their policy is not to do refunds, I ask why I should believe the August 1st date won’t ship? Asshole starts explaining how it’s not his fault and since I’d heard this already I interrupt and suggest a refund again. Asshole hangs up on me.

Speculation: Spirol may have outsourced some or all of their products and foolishly sold off or reallocated their manufacturing capacity before their overseas suppliers came up to speed and my sales rep left the company because of these problems.

Conclusions: My sales rep is no longer with the company and the company is ineptly run by an Asshole.

Action: Seek alternative sources and cease speccing and recommending Spirol as a reliable source of quality products.